Ward 13 · Rideau-Rockcliffe · 2026
Peter Karwacki
A summary of published positions from peterkarwacki.blogspot.com
. Use it to compare issues you care about with the record
Background
Peter Jan Karwacki lives in Overbrook. He is a project management professional (PMP), holds a B.Sc. and a graduate diploma in business administration, and founded Peer Metrics in 2013 to help organizations benchmark performance. Earlier work includes hospital administration in Northern Ontario and business-intelligence and project work at Cognos/IBM and on federal files.
He ran in Rideau-Rockcliffe in 2019 and 2022 and is running again in 2026. In questionnaire answers he says length of residence is not the qualification — knowing the files is — and he states a one-term pledge so the incentive is to name structural problems rather than keep the seat.
He describes the ward as two cities on one ballot: Rockcliffe Park, New Edinburgh, Lindenlea, and Manor Park beside Overbrook and east-end streets with more renters, higher core housing need, and more deferred infrastructure.
The governing idea
The through-line on the blog is measurement before announcement. Outputs (“grants disbursed,” “units announced”) are not treated as outcomes (“wait-lists moved,” “buses that arrive,” “tickets closed for a reason”). Warnings are supposed to become dated public actions: St-Laurent tunnel findings, police-board audit gaps, 311 bulk closures, capital slippage.
Stated method: start with 311 extracts, audited financials, attendance records, and Auditor General reports; prefer structural fixes over personal blame; publish neighbourhood scorecards before major approvals.
"What I would do differently"
Transit and LRT
Measure whether a rider can use the service, not whether a route exists on paper. Tie any fare relief to audited on-time performance, cancellations, and frequency on local routes such as 6, 7, and 12. Sit on Transit Commission and the Light Rail Subcommittee. Treat the 2020 St-Laurent tunnel finding and five-year bearing failures as open governance files, not closed communications files.
Housing and intensification
Supports more housing with conditions. Publish a ward infrastructure scorecard — road condition, sewer capacity, sidewalk gaps, park space, transit frequency — before approvals. Track community benefits and development charges to the streets that generated them. Do not approve growth first and fund the pipe later. Do not warehouse affordable units in only one part of the ward.
East End Crossing
Supports the proposed Kettle Island / Aviation Parkway interprovincial crossing as a way to take trucks off King Edward and Rideau. Argument on the blog: council math already runs 16–9 against a single-ward veto, so the work is to shape design and mitigation now, including pedestrian crossings such as Aviation Parkway and Birch.
311 and city information
Upgrade 311 rather than build another app. Use GPS-aware project lookup so new tickets can link to active capital jobs at creation. Publish 311 resolution times by category and ward. The open-data finding cited on the blog is more than 123,000 tickets bulk-closed in a six-day window. City search should surface live tools, not old PDFs.
Police oversight
Hold the police budget to clearance, response, and board-reporting standards before adding unrestricted growth. Restore proper board consultation on major changes. Publish performance and database-misuse audit metrics. Scale civilian crisis response so police are not the default on calls they should not own. Cites 2026 Auditor General findings on vague or inaccurate board reporting.
Money and taxes
Would support a tax increase around inflation (~3%) and not a dollar more without a public account of what the last increase bought. Wants three public columns on city liabilities: what is owed, when it is due, and what the last increase purchased. Critiques Lansdowne 2.0 as a long-dated exposure and argues signature projects should not outrank sewers, stormwater, and roads.
Local infrastructure positions on the record
- Traffic: treat St-Laurent / Vanier–Beechwood and related choke points as specific design problems, including traffic circles where the blog argues overlays have failed.
- Pedestrians: missing or weak crossings, including Aviation Parkway / Birch, as a current-term delivery gap.
- Flooding: report every incident to 311 so the dataset matches the street; expand protective plumbing support where the existing rebate program does not reach.
- Parks: name and fund park equity across neighbouring communities; the blog treats Bathgate court removal without replacement as an example of uneven standard.
- McKay Pond: basic safety equipment (reach pole, ring buoy, AED), not a supervised beach.
- Open data: road condition by segment, sidewalk gaps, 311 closure rates, and capital-plan slippage published without a freedom-of-information request.
AI and digital government
Two separate claims on the blog. First, city hall is already using AI tools (staff prompts, hiring screens, infrastructure video analysis) without a public disclosure standard; he wants an inventory, default disclosure, human appeal, pre-deployment testing, and an Auditor General review. Second, large computational loads and data centres are a grid and bill issue, not only a software issue, and should be visible in Hydro Ottawa and IESO planning that residents can read.
Taxes, affordability, and services
Affordability, in the CBC answers, is not only the mill rate. Unreliable buses, deferred sewers, basement flooding, and hotel-based homelessness are treated as municipal costs imposed on households. Intensification is scored 4 out of 5: necessary, but sloppy if buses, pipes, schools, and parks do not arrive with the units.
How to check the source
Campaign page Positions ledger (#495) CBC questionnaire (#494) Full blog
Contact listed on the campaign page: peterkarwacki.overbrook@gmail.com · 613-304-5844
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